


if you lifted my heart to your ear

by Hannah (hannahoftheinternet)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Practical Magic Fusion, Angst, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post Glamour Springs, Sibling Love, don't worry about the major character death it's temporary, glamour springs, ships won't happen until later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahoftheinternet/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: Taako and Lup are inseparable. Everyone knows the twins who live with their aunt by the lake. The terror twins, the wizard twins. Nothing will ever tear them apart.Taako and Lup talk on the stone once a week, and see each other once a year. It shows no signs of changing--until Lup asks her boyfriend to accompany her on her yearly trip to reunite with Taako at the lake.When they return to the place where they grew up, there's blood on the moon--a sign of trouble not far ahead. Everything is changing.On hiatus as of 3/11/20.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), Lup & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 48





	1. chocolate cake for breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by my watching my favorite romcom and finishing Balance in the same week. I hope you enjoy it! The next chapter should be up within a week. Remember to leave a comment!

“Taako’s good out here,” he says, staring up at the house. It’s a huge house, all gables and windows like it’s been put together by a blind giant. Taako isn’t short at all by elven standards, even for his age, but right now he feels about dwarf-sized. Beside him, Lup shifts, uncharacteristically nervous when faced with their wealthy relative and her home.

“Oh, come now,” says his aunt, standing behind him. She’s over a foot taller than both of them, and she puts one hand on his shoulder and one on Lup’s. They exchange glances and Taako pulls a face, like:  _ What the hell is the catch? _ Lup gives him a weird look back, with the corners of her mouth pulled down and her eyes wide, and then Auntie starts ushering them forwards. “Let’s get you inside, out of this sun.”

“Wait,” Lup says, craning her neck around to look at the long, paved driveway that they’re currently being bustled up. Taako follows her line of sight and sees their single suitcase sitting by the road. “What about our stuff?”

Their aunt scoffs. “Don’t worry about that,” and Taako feels a rush of panic. All his possessions are there: the clothes he’s collected, a tiny cookbook, the meager amount of money scraped together one way or another. He twists his shoulders, trying to wiggle out of Auntie’s grasp, but she’s a lot stronger than she looks. “Kids, your stuff will be fine.” Taako retreats, but his mind is already looking for an opportunity to run out and grab the suitcase. It’s bad enough that they have to stay with a woman they don’t know; if he has to live without all his stuff, he’s going to go crazy.

“What if someone tries to steal it?” Lup asks, craning her head around to look up at Auntie. Despite everything, Taako hides a smile. The pair of them definitely know about stealing.

Auntie grins. “Let them try.”

By that time, they’re already through the huge, heavy front door, and Auntie  _ makes them take their shoes off _ , so they’re walking through the house in their bare feet. The hardwood is cool against Taako’s soles, and he’d never admit it to anyone but Lup, but he’s glad to be out of the sun. It’s so, so hot outside, hot enough that the hair at the back of his neck is damp with sweat. Lup, with her shaved nape and bobbed hair, is having no such trouble. She’s staring around the house with awe that Taako himself feels a twinge of. Neither of them has ever seen a home this fancy in all their lives. 

They wander around for a bit until Auntie summons them to the kitchen. They have to follow the sound of her voice to find her in the maze, but they soon stumble upon a well-stocked kitchen with marble counters and  _ a real oven _ , and their aunt is sitting at a round table in one corner of the large room. The suitcase sits on the tiles beside her.

Taako gives Lup a sidelong look, and he knows they’re both remembering a fairytale they heard once about a woman who lured two elven children into her home, only to reveal her true orc self and try to eat the children alive. They pull themselves up onto the two chairs facing Auntie, who folds her arms and looks at them, her expression that of someone who takes absolutely no bullshit. “I’m going to set down some ground rules for you two.” Lup presses her shoulder against his and he leans into her for comfort, waiting for Auntie to lay down the law. “In this house,” she continues, “we eat chocolate cake for breakfast.”

It takes Taako a few seconds to process this, but he and Lup understand at exactly the same time, and they give Auntie twin delighted grins. She fails to hide a smile as she goes on. “We never bother with silly things like bedtimes or chores. We use spells for every little thing, and we see shows in town every single weekend.”

Lup hollers with glee, and Taako wants to be excited, he really does, but there’s a nagging thought at the forefront of his mind. He’s wondering what the catch is, how Istus could guide them to a rich relative in a fancy house by a lake who seems to have no rules except  _ have fun _ . It’s too good to be true, and it’s all going to come crashing around their ears.

Auntie takes a long look at him, and he stares back at her. He’s skeptical about whether or not this woman is really his mom’s sister, but they do look similar, he thinks. Same brown skin, same straw-colored hair. She smiles at him, and they have the same gap between their front teeth. “Why don’t you go upstairs to your bedrooms?” she says.

“Bedrooms,  _ plural _ ?” Lup yells, and that’s it. Taako’s sold. If he doesn’t have to share with his sister, who kicks and talks in her sleep, he’s happy. (Not really, though. The few times that they’ve slept away from each other, Taako has had bad dreams about what might happen if they’re not together.) The three of them tromp up a long staircase to the very top of the house, where Auntie has set aside two rooms on either side of a little hallway.

“Taako, Lup,” she says. “Welcome home. Pick a room.” They’ve always done it this way, and there’s no reason to change it, so Lup takes the right-hand room and Taako zips into the left. There’s a huge bed pushed up against one wall, and a lamp and a slouchy beanbag, but everything is the same beige color. He looks at his aunt curiously, and she grins. “Do you know how to snap?” He snaps to demonstrate, making her nod approvingly. “Okay, you’re going to cast a spell. A variation of Prestidigitation.” He knows that; that’s a spell he casts a  _ lot _ . “You have to channel permanence for this one. It’s meant to stick around, not like regular Prestidigitation. Focus on the wall, pick a color you want, and snap.”

The walls turn seafoam-green.

“Whoa,” he says, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness of the color. “That’s sick. Did I do that?”

Auntie shrugs. “It wasn’t me. Why don’t you try it on your other stuff? I’m going to check on Lup. Call me if you need anything!” She disappears, and suddenly Taako finds himself running around the room, casting Prestidigitation on everything. His room turns into an explosion of color--blues and greens and purples of all shades. He’s making the lamp cycle through rainbow hues when Auntie returns and says, “Why don’t you open those doors now?”

Taako hadn’t even  _ noticed _ the doors at the other end of the room, but he throws them open and yells “ _ FUCK! _ ” in sheer delight. It’s a walk-in closet, full to bursting with bright clothes. There’s even a chest with all kinds of jewelry inside it, and he swears again for extra measure, turning to his aunt and shouting, “How rich  _ are _ you?”

She laughs, a full-bellied laugh that he and Lup both share, and then everything devolves into Lup dressing up in the sundresses and tunics that Auntie filled her closet with, and Taako changes the colors of the fabric until it’s one in the morning and their faces hurt from laughing, but he still has a little feeling in the back of his throat that something bad is going to happen at this house.


	2. whistle my favorite song

After a few months of, as promised, eating chocolate cake until they get sick of it, going to bed whenever they want, and learning spell after spell after spell, Lup gets curious. They’ve learned dozens of different cantrips and a few low-level spells, but nosiness gets the better of her--and Taako; he’s not exempt--and one night after Auntie goes to bed, they creep down the long flight of stairs to the library in the east wing of the house. Lup is still marveling at that, at how a house can be big enough to have  _ wings _ . Their aunt trusts them enough to never lock doors, so they get into the library easily. The floors creak and squeak under their bare feet, but Lup honestly thinks that they could talk as loudly as they want and still not be caught.

Taako pulls a few spellbooks down off the shelves at random, scattering loose sheets of paper. Lup looks around the library. She’s never seen this many books in her life, even when she and her brother crashed in a public library several years ago. Auntie probably has the best collection of magical tomes in the region. She discovers a sliding glass door leading out onto the dock, which stretches out into the darkness of the lake. She steps into the late autumn air, a cool breeze playing with her hair. Pulled by some unknown force calling her to the water, she goes and settles at the end of the dock, rolling up the legs of her sweatpants so they won’t get wet when she dips her feet in the water. It’s cold, and she recoils a little--she hates the cold--but she keeps her feet submerged.

Taako appears a few moments later, several books tucked into the crook of his arm. He sits down next to her, and they both watch as a little curl of paper falls into the water. She jabs him in the ribs and he retaliates by splashing her. They tussle for a bit, and then they fall silent, looking across the water. It’s a rare moment of calmness for both of them, until Taako flips open a book to a random page and starts reading it. “Hey, a fill-in-the-blank game.”

“No way,” Lup says, peering over his shoulder.

“It looks like it was ripped out of a different book.” He picks it from between the pages of the tome and hands it to her. “Check it.”

She takes it, noticing that the title of the document is completely torn off, runs her thumb over the torn edge, and bright pain spikes up her finger. “Ow!” She licks the pad of her thumb where the paper cut her, blood sharp on her tongue. She doesn’t know any healing spells; maybe she’ll learn one tonight.

“Nice going, Lulu,” Taako says, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “You got blood on the paper.”

“Shut up, dingus,” she mutters, and passes the paper back to him.

He clears his throat and reads out a line from the paper: “ ‘He will be marvelously… blank.’ ”

Lup repeats, “Blank.”

“Fill in the blank!”

“Nerdy!” she blurts, because that’s the first word that comes to her mind. Taako laughs loud, his voice echoing across the water.

“Great,” he says, “you just doomed some poor guy to awkwardness for the rest of his life.” She elbows him, feels him flinch, and looks over at him with alarm. “The paper filled it in!” he cries. “That’s creepy as shit.” When she looks, the blank beside the sentence is filled in with the word  _ nerdy _ , in handwriting that’s not her messy scrawl or Taako’s spiky letters. A grown-up’s handwriting.

“It’s probably from those magic Mad Libs books,” she dismisses. “I’ve seen them in bookstores. What’s the next blank?”

“ ‘His favorite shape will be…’ ”

Lup stares up at the moons sitting heavy and cold in the sky. “A circle.”

“Lame,” Taako singsongs. “ ‘His favorite color will be…’ ”

“Red,” she says immediately. She sees it in her mind: the bright red walls of her bedroom. That’s her favorite color, the blood and passion and fire of it. Again, Taako makes fun of her (“You’re just saying that ‘cause it’s  _ your _ favorite color”), and she resists the urge to tip her brother into the lake. “Fine, blue.” But when she leans over,  _ red _ remains where it is. “See? It liked my answer.”

“Okay, what about… ‘He will whistle my favorite song’ and then a colon. What’s your favorite song?”

Lup considers it, notes of all the songs she loves playing through her head, but she settles on one she heard at a show, back when they were much, much younger. “ _ Salut d’Amour _ ,” she says at last, humming a little bit of the song. “Taako, what is this? Why is it saying ‘he’?”  _ Could we be getting into something dark? _ she thinks, but doesn’t say.

Taako shrugs. “It’s just a game, Lulu. Do the last one; we’re almost done. It’s weird: ‘He will hear…’ ”

Lup doesn’t know why she says it, exactly. It’s not something she planned on saying, but when she opens her mouth, the words are entirely different than what she wanted them to be. “My voice when I die.”

They shiver in tandem, the cool wind blowing over the water suddenly turning cold, biting at their hands and faces. “What the fuck, Lup?” Taako whispers, and she only shakes her head in response, unable to explain her words. “Fuck, let’s go inside.”

Lup picks up a few books in silence, following Taako back into the library to return them to their shelves. They leave wet footprints on the wood floors. He hands her the magical paper, and she shudders when she sees those words in the last blank of it:  _ my voice when I die _ . She stuffs it between a couple of random books, hoping that the dust collecting on them means Auntie won’t touch them for a long time.

The two creep back up to bed, whispering goodnight as their doors shut silently, but Lup tosses and turns, sleep eluding her. Eventually, after an hour of staring at the backs of her eyelids to no avail, she tiptoes across the hall and curls up next to her brother, the way she always does when she has a nightmare.

When she wakes up, she can see snow on the ground through the bay window in her brother’s room. Taako is already awake, and he grins and makes fun of her bedhead in such a way that she’s convinced, she’s  _ convinced _ , everything that happened on the dock was just a bad dream, a tumble of dark thoughts brought on by the changing weather.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I'm posting this chapter one day ahead of schedule because I came out to my dad!
> 
> Remember, comments are a writer's best friend!


	3. never see you again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a cameo in this chapter!

Years pass like water running through Taako’s fingers. A blink, and Lup’s hair has grown past her elbows. A snap of his fingers, and he’s learned a high-level spell that he never expected to know. A sigh, and their aunt develops a hacking cough that never goes away.

Taako knows he’s going to leave his aunt’s home one day, to satisfy his urge to  _ move _ , to  _ travel _ , but not today, not tomorrow, not in the next year. He knows the same of Lup. There’s a moment, a blip in time, where they’re sitting on the dock together, drinking lemonade one spring night, when Lup asks, “Do you ever think about what we’re going to do when she’s gone?”

Taako kicks through the water and sends ripples scattering over the surface. “She’s not even four hundred yet, Lulu. She’s fine.”

She hums  _ no _ to the nickname, but she’s had years to get over her exasperation--it’s more of an inside joke than anything else. “She’s been to all the healers in the region,  _ Koko _ , and no one’s been able to do anything for her.”

“She’ll be fine,” he says again, and splashes her. “Chill out and drink your lemonade.” She looks sad and quiet, and it’s so unlike her that he wishes he had the power of twin telepathy, so he can see what is wrong.

Despite his admonitions, he thinks that he worries more than Lup. He tamps it down, of course--no point in worrying when he can’t do anything about it--but when he’s stayed up very late and his eyes are very tired, he has nightmares of Auntie coughing up blood, Lup screaming, and it’s hard for him to wake up the next morning.

On their one hundredth birthday--the day they become adults--Auntie throws them a huge party at the house. She invites pretty much the entire town, and there are people in the yard and the lake and the kitchen all night long. Usually, when Auntie throws a party, Taako and Lup insist on doing the meal preparation with her, so she doesn’t bear the burden of cooking for dozens of people alone, but for their birthday, they decide to let her do it herself. Taako is hanging out in the den, his Stone of Farspeech tuned into a comedy radio show, when he sees an  _ extremely _ buff human dude sneak through the hallway into the kitchen. Taako raises his eyebrows, and the human gives him a little wave in response.

Eventually, Lup yells at him to get up off the couch and actually go participate in his own birthday party, and he wanders out into the yard to the picnic table that has been set up, because he could just  _ murder _ a sandwich or some lasagna right now. He grabs a handful of chips and surveys the scene: there’s some chill music playing, fireflies floating lazily around the figures backlit by the glow of the house’s lights. He spots the young human man he saw earlier, and the guy waves him over. “Hey,” Taako says as he approaches.

“Hey,” the guy returns, holding out his hand to shake. “Magnus Burnsides. I guess you’re the birthday elf?”

Taako shakes his hand--it’s a little sweaty, and he wipes his palm quickly on his shirt. “I would joke that I’m the one and only, but my twin sister Lup is over that way.” He inclines his head in her general direction. “I’m Taako.”

“Hi,” Magnus says again. There’s a bit of an awkward pause before he continues, “Does this happen every year? The party?”

Taako nods. “Are you new in town? ‘Cause my auntie’s parties are  _ legendary _ .”

Magnus laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah, I moved here last winter. I run Hammer and Tails down on Main Street.” When Taako gives him a blank look, he goes on: “I teach protection and train service dogs!”

“Admirable.”

They chat for a few more minutes, but Taako isn’t really into small talk, so he says goodbye and goes to find his sister, because the pressure of being a new adult is getting to him, and he needs to trade from friendly jibes with her to relax.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s slightly hungover, and when he wanders into the kitchen for some orange juice, his aunt says, “Taako, how would you feel about getting a job?” and that’s the rest of the morning gone.

He does actually wind up getting a job, but it’s cooking, and that’s pretty much his favorite thing in the entire world, so it’s not even really like work. There’s a restaurant in the town that needs a chef who is a quick study, and Taako jumps on the opportunity. Funnily enough, the restaurant is right next to Hammer and Tails, and he sometimes goes during his lunch hour to see Magnus training dogs.

Taako falls into a routine, which isn’t a very Taako thing to do, but it’s the best thing for now. He’s not leaving until he knows that his aunt is alright. He owes it to her. He spends two years working at that restaurant, and it’s good. He has money, he has friends, he has  _ prospects _ . A couple months ago, an agent showed up at the restaurant, ate Taako’s slowly-becoming-famous thirty garlic clove chicken, and offered him a cooking show if he wanted it. Taako told him he’d sleep on it.

He’s in the middle of a fancy vegetable dish for the anniversary party outside when Magnus comes into the kitchen. His face is dark with some kind of pain, and Taako is instantly on edge. The man who he’s come to consider his friend is not a particularly troubled person. Taako’s knife slips slightly in his hand, and he gets a harder grip on it. “What’s up?”

“Lup’s here,” Magnus says. “She says she needs to talk to you.”

Taako jerks his head in the universal gesture for  _ come in _ , and Lup takes Magnus’s place in the doorway. “Taako.” He doesn’t look up from his vegetables, he  _ can’t _ . “Taako.”

“What?”

Her voice breaks. “It’s Auntie. She’s…”

The next thing Taako feels is not sadness. Not anger. It’s pain, blinding pain spreading through his arm like fire. His cutting board is covered in his blood.

“Taako!” Lup cries. She sounds far away. Numbness rushes through his body. He’s starting to get dizzy.  _ Auntie _ …

Three days later, the gash he carved in his hand is fully healed, leaving only behind a rough scar that pulls when he flexes his fingers. He attends the funeral in silence, wrapping his arms around Lup as she sobs, and later retreats into the cold, empty house with his Stone of Farspeech. He summons up the frequency of the agent who visited him, already planning what to pack in his suitcase. He leaves tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! ;). Remember to leave a comment!


	4. wish you could see me

For Lup, the years after her aunt’s death and her brother’s departure pass quickly. She enrolls in an academy of magic and, much to her own surprise, studies hard enough to come out at the top of her class. Having never actually been to formal school, she had assumed she wasn’t very good at it, but this proved not to be the case. It’s not the same as many other universities; tuition is free here, but she does need money for housing, so she interviews at the cafeteria in the academy. Taako is the one who’s more into cooking, but she’s pretty damn good. Plus, she gets free meals.

She thinks about her brother constantly, even though she’s not sure he’s thinking about her. He’s busy, he says, touring the continent with his cooking show. She’s heard people talking about it, even seen some students around campus wearing his merch. She has to smile at that: her brother has  _ merch. _ Her brother is  _ famous. _

They talk on their stones once a week, catching each other up on their lives. Taako regales her with tales of all the places he’s traveled, and she in turn talks to him about ancient magic and powerful spells. Once a year, during the summer, when Lup doesn’t have to go to school and Taako takes a week off, they both go home to the lake. They stay at the house, meeting up with old friends and reminiscing. Being happy. One year, Lup thinks for the briefest moment:  _ This is what we could have every day if Taako hadn’t decided he couldn’t handle Auntie’s death, _ and then instantly feels bad about it. She knows her brother doesn’t like having to deal with his emotions, and while she worries about him, she doesn’t resent him. Like Taako says, suddenly going into academia as a coping mechanism is just as weird.

Before she knows it, it’s been five years since Auntie died, and her studies are getting more and more difficult. She’s already decided that she’s going to be an adventurer, hunting for treasure and lost artifacts, blasting monsters with the evocation magic she’s honed over the course of her life.

Every few weeks, she rents out a practice room at the school, the same one every time, and she thinks it’s funny that the cleaning staff have stopped trying to erase the scorch marks she puts into the walls. When she walks in one winter afternoon, though, there’s a guy there, sitting against the wall and peering at a huge textbook through oversize wire-frame glasses. When she clears her throat, he looks up and says, “Oh, hey!” in the  _ dorkiest way possible _ .

“Hi,” she says. “I thought I was going to be alone in here today.” This is probably the most obvious hint she could possibly give, and the guy seems to get it. He clambers to his feet, clutching his book to his chest. “I guess I was wrong.”

“I was going to practice,” says the guy apologetically. He’s stuttering, Lup notices. “I was planning on it, but I couldn’t find the spell I was looking for. Sorry. I’ll go.” 

He starts to move to the door, but Lup stops him. “Wait, what spell?”

The guy sheepishly says, “Arcane Hand,” 

Lup nods. It’s kind of funny to her, how he acts like he’s embarrassed. She doesn’t have much of a grasp on human lifespans, but he doesn’t look that old to her. Certainly not at the age where he should be embarrassed about not knowing fifth-level spells. “Want me to show you?”

Immediately perking up, the guy says, “Thanks!” As an afterthought, he sticks out his hand, adding, “I’m Barry.”

Lup shakes his hand. “Lup. Okay, Arcane Hand. You into evocation?”

Shaking his head, Barry casts a glance to his textbook. It’s not in Common or Elvish, but the cover illustration catches her attention--a wizard surrounded by a cloud of green mist. “I’m not really into combat magic. Just figured it would be handy.” They both giggle at his pun, Lup’s tongue poking out like it always does when she laughs. She catches Barry quickly looking away from her.

“A’ight,” she says, “here,” and she casts Arcane Hand. Her magic always comes up tinged faintly red, which she likes. She waves a little, and the large, disembodied hand waves along with her motions. Barry smiles and flicks his wrist, his brow furrowed as he casts a new spell. It takes him a couple tries, and a few muttered swears, but eventually a spectral hand manifests out of thin air in a shade of red that matches her own. “Hey, nice.”

Barry readjusts his glasses and grins. “My favorite color.”

Lup is trying to high-five him, she really is, but he moves at the last second, staring out the doorway, and she realizes a second too late that he wasn’t where she thought he was, and he doesn’t  _ notice, _ and she ends up smacking him directly in the face. Barry yelps, his spell vanishing as his hands fly up to his nose. In a panic, Lup disengages her spell and yells, “Oh, gods!” When Barry pulls his hands away from his face, there’s blood pouring from both of his nostrils and his fingers are stained red, just like his Arcane Hand. But this she knows how to handle, this is something she and Taako learned at a young age--always carry a potion of healing, especially if you enjoy doing reckless things. She pulls the potion from her bag and hands it over. Barry downs it gratefully, groaning and making faces as his nose is magically unbroken.

“Thanks,” he says when he’s healed, but his hands are still covered in blood. “I’m going to… go wash my hands, I guess.”

“Sorry.” Lup winces in sympathy. “I didn’t mean to hit you.”

Barry smiles at her, surprisingly happy for someone who’s just had his nose broken. “Yeah, I know you didn’t. See you around, Lup.”

She does, in fact, see him around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting more into the plot now! Remember to leave a comment if you enjoyed!


	5. as long as they come back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the new tags: this chapter is my version of what happened in Glamour Springs, and deals with vomiting, panic attacks, brief mentions of suicide, death... The works. There will be a summary in the end notes, in case you don't want to read the chapter in graphic detail.

It’s barely mid-spring, but Taako wipes sweat off his forehead and wonders for the third time in ten minutes why he doesn’t just fucking cut his hair. It’s a nuisance more than anything--having to tie it back in a braid for every single show so he doesn’t get distracted by it or set it on fire.

He leans over to Sazed and says, “As soon as I’m done, you and I are going to find a fucking hairdresser and my hair is going to get about two feet shorter.”

“I could just do it now,” Sazed offers, and picks up a pair of kitchen scissors. “Surprise the audience.” Taako makes a raspberry sound. Sazed laughs weakly. “What about the brand? People like your braid. There’s fanart.”

“ _ Fuck _ the brand,” Taako says emphatically. Sazed starts muttering unintelligibly under his breath, which Taako takes as a sign to start ignoring him. He peeks through the slats that cover his counter, spotting a massive crowd gathered expectantly around his stagecoach. “How many tickets did we sell?”

Sazed fiddles with the sales records. “Looks like… forty tickets for Glamour Springs.” He glances around at the ingredients on his counter and says uncertainly, “Are you sure we have enough?”

“Sazed,” Taako says, “I’m a  _ fucking transmutation wizard. _ I can make it be enough.” He throws open the shutters and shouts, “Good morning, Glamour Springs!” The crowd  _ screams _ in response, forty voices expressing their love for him. He takes a long moment, just to savor the feeling of people being excited to see him. This  _ never _ gets old. “Welcome to  _ Sizzle It up With Taako! _ ”

It’s perfect; everything is perfect. Taako makes his famous thirty garlic clove chicken, and he’s liberal with his transmutations. The crowd watches, awed and open-mouthed as he changes pearls (fake ones; he’s not that rich) into elderberries in midair, and they gasp when the glistening garnishes land perfectly around the plates. “Now for the finale!” he yells into the crowd. They all inhale as one, waiting to see what will happen next. He flashes his big smile, the one he does for portrait artists and fantasy tabloids and says, “Gather ‘round, and Sazed will serve each and every one of you a piece.” His fans start to babble excitedly. Sazed yelps and drops a pan with a resounding clatter. Leaning over, out of sight of the audience, Taako hisses, “Get your shit together.” Nodding, Sazed grabs utensils and starts to fill cardboard boxes with chicken, and Taako takes a moment to congratulate himself before heading out for the meet-and-greet.

He talks, mingles, gives autographs to teenage girls and a few teenage boys. All around him, people are enjoying his food--mostly moms, but there’s no shortage of the aforementioned teenagers. Everyone is praising him. Briefly, he thinks,  _ I wish Lup were here. _ He takes a moment to miss her so much it hurts. And then someone calls his name, and his attention is diverted.

It’s not until the meet-and-greet is drawing to a close that someone starts vomiting.

It’s a young boy, a human, clutching his stomach and wiping spit and vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mommy,” he says, “my tummy hurts.” And suddenly, like they were all waiting for a signal, everyone-- _ everyone _ \--starts complaining of queasiness, their chicken and garlic and  _ fucking elderberries _ rising up from stomachs through throats.

“Sazed,” Taako says tightly. “Get in the stagecoach.” Sazed looks as green as anyone, but for the first time in months, he obeys Taako and gets in the stagecoach without hesitation or questions. Taako follows him, locks up quickly, and slumps against the locked back door. His stomach is churning, and he can taste bile.  _ I didn’t eat any _ .

He watches out the window, watches as the boy falls and his mother screams murder at the departing stagecoach.

“What the hell?” murmurs Sazed, once they’ve been on the road for a long time without a single word. “Taako, what… the  _ hell? _ ”

“The elderberries.” Taako speaks through his teeth. He can’t believe it, can’t believe  _ himself. _ All this recklessness, all this showmanship, and he should have been paying more attention to what he was actually transmuting, and  _ fuck, _ if he opens his mouth any more, he’s going to be sick. “I think I changed them wrong.”

Sazed doesn’t answer him, and Taako wants nothing more than to slide into sleep or a trance and not  _ think, _ but he knows his dreams would be dark. He never has nightmares unless he’s scared, and he’s scared as hell. Lup is the one who has nightmares for no reason. And thinking about his sister, and what she would say, what she would think of him, is really too much, and he closes his eyes and drops into uneasy sleep.

They leave Glamour Springs far, far behind. Sazed doesn’t stop driving for two days. He drinks lots of coffee, and by the time they find a place to stop, Taako is pretty fed up with sleeping himself, because he lies on the shitty bed in the shitty inn and tries not to have one panic attack after another. He cries a little bit.

Eventually, Sazed comes back to the room they’re sharing, and Taako quickly dries his eyes. Sazed looks manic, and he’s clutching a huge tome to his chest. It looks like it’s bound in  _ dwarf skin. _ “Taako,” he says, sitting down on Taako’s bed, “I have an idea. What if--” He’s talking so fast that Taako struggles to understand him. “What if we bring them back?”

“What?” Taako snaps, extremely sharply.

Sazed hands him the book. In dark, curling script, the cover says,  _ The Nekromantik Arts. _

“No.” Taako’s voice is suddenly too loud. “Sazed, absolutely not. We can’t. I’m not a high enough level and--”

“We could find someone else to do it!” Sazed’s cheeks are blotchy with fervor. His tone rises in pitch with every syllable. “Taako, just  _ think _ about it. We could bring them back. Everything would be okay.”

“You and I both know people don’t come back right.”

“What does it matter, as long as they come back?” Sazed shouts, and he’s right in Taako’s face now, and Taako can’t  _ think _ , can’t  _ breathe _ , and he shoves Sazed away from him. The man sprawls on the dirty floor with a thud. Taako doesn’t apologize. They stare at each other, long and hard, and Sazed says, very quietly, “Fuck you.”

And then he leaves.

Taako contemplates throwing himself out a window, but he’s fairly sure that wouldn’t do much damage, as he’s only on the second floor. His stomach growls. He hasn’t eaten anything for the last few days, and even elves can’t survive on nothing. But when he goes to the stagecoach, to get some money from the bag he left there, it’s been ransacked. All the valuables are gone. Everything is gone.

Sazed is gone.

He left a pair of kitchen scissors in one of the drawers, though, and Taako grips it by the blade in his fist. He’s trembling. His hair, unbound, falls around his face, tickling his cheeks and ears, and suddenly he knows what he wants. He knows he could transmute it much more easily, but he doesn’t want to use magic. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever want to transmute anything ever again. He takes up the scissors that Sazed had offered him the day everything went to shit, and follows through on the best suggestion Sazed had ever given him.

He abandons the stagecoach when he skips town, leaves it there with his name painted on the side and his golden hair strewn over the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Taako complains about his hair and Sazed offers to cut it. Taako does a show in Glamour Springs, making his thirty garlic clove chicken. He serves it to the audience, and they start getting queasy and throwing up. Someone collapses, and Taako and Sazed leave in the stagecoach. After driving for two days, they stop at an inn. Sazed comes into their shared room with a book of necromancy and suggests bringing Glamour Springs back to life. Taako says no and shoves him away. Sazed leaves, and when Taako goes down to the stagecoach to get some money, he realizes that Sazed took all of their gold with him. He cuts off his long hair and leaves town.
> 
> I can't say this wasn't fun to write! I love inflicting pain on my favorite characters. Remember to leave a comment!


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